Copper Bottomed Memory

The department store's display of copper bottomed pans triggered memories of his childhood.

The paneled wall above the stove in his grandparents' kitchen had been covered with similar pots hanging from S shaped hooks.  The kitchen had been barely large enough to accomodate the basic appliances, but somehow room had been found for a small kitchen table. 

At holidays when the kitchen was a hubbub of people coming and going, the kitchen table had been an oasis. Set off to one side, pressed up against a window looking into a brick alley. the table was lit by a single light fixture dangling from the ceiling on a cord the color of cork.

He had sat at this table while stuffed turkeys were pulled from ovens, gravy was heated on the stove, and cranberry was pulled from the freezer. He watched his grandmother and grandfather execute an intricate waltz - each trying to be in two places at the same time while managing to avoid tangling their feet as they slid past one another in the limited space.

His job had been to make sure the hobgobblins didn't run off with the food as it was plated and staged on the table before being moved to the dining room. At least that what his grandmother had told him. And while he didn't really believe that was his job at all, he did wonder about what might be lurking in the back stairs that had at one time run into the kitchen before being walled off.

Argo

And the Oscar goes to.....

If you haven't seen the movie Argo, I suggest you do.  As long as your into edge-of-your-seat, nail-biting, anxiety-driving, movies.

Many is the time I have been glad I rented a movie rather than going to a theater because I would have been bummed to have spent movie theater prices.

But this past Saturday, when I watched Argo from the comfort of my living room, I was glad I had rented the movie because... in a theater I wouldn't have been able to pace nervously back and forth for the last twenty minutes of the movie.  Had I been confined to a seat I would almost certainly have popped a blood vessel.

So, oh yeah... if you have high blood pressure be sure to take your meds before the movie begins.

Beginning a Day

There is a certain purity that comes with morning along the ocean. The air is crisp and the breeze races freely.
The newly risen sun casts a golden glow, turning grains of sand into twinkling jewels and windows of houses into yellow mirrors. 

Hope comes with such a morning. Belief that mistakes and misgivings are washed away. Belief that just as the sun has arisen anew so does life begin on a new slate.

There is the recognition that  despite decisions made and roads traveled one day will follow the next as surely as one breath follows another. There will be new opportunities, new friendships, and new accomplishments. And if that day does not offer what was hoped for, there is need only to wait for the next sunrise.

Annual Appearance

It had taken over a year of research to understand the pattern.

His interest had been piqued when he first saw mist rise from a rectangular patch of earth and coalesce into the image of man wearing battle fatigues.A week later it had been a child in baseball uniform and nearly a month after that a woman wearing a flowing gown. Each rose from a different grave.

He became obsessed... needing to understand the pattern that was tied to neither birth date nor date of death. He researched the lives of the people buried in the cemetery, looking for some common thread. He looked for factors such as diagnosis of terminal illness, death of a relative, even loss of a pet; some crisis event the anniversary of which would bring a spirit back.

The second appearance of the wounded soldier  exactly one year to the day after the first ghostly appearance took the search back to date of death. Still no match.  And then he found it. The missing common denominator.  Each spirit rose on the date of burial.

He wondered what they hoped to find.

Ceiling Count

And just what is a man supposed to do while waiting for his wife and daughter to purchase undergarments?

What started as a simple trip to the grocery store had morphed into a day of running errands. One of those errands being to make purchases to restock the smaller drawers in the bureaus throughout the house. 

For a man this involves grabbing a pack each of socks, briefs, and shirts. The mens stuff fits into forty square feet of a six hundred square foot Hanes store.  The rest of the store is given over to more variations of smallish..and not so smallish.. undergarments than I had ever imagined possible.

With my shopping completed in just under three minutes, I had twenty more minutes to kill until the women were done.  What to do?  The weather outside was frightful, but inside was not particularly delightful. There was no place to look that didn't leave me feeling like a voyuer. And no matter how slowly I shuffled around the store it seemed I kept bumping into the same women. Surely they would soon be calling 911.

Ultimately I settled for counting the tiles in the drop ceiling. Two hundred and twenty one, two hundred and twenty two...

Life's Walls

Be careful what you wish for.

We wished for new carpet in the family room and new vinyl in the laundry room.  Our wishes came true.  Now we have to clear those rooms so the installers can come do their thing.

So while Motivated Mom and I tackle that clearing and cleaning project over the next few days I offer the following for your consideration.

The walls in life are only as high as you allow then to be.

On His Way

The travellin' man set down his scuffed and scraped leather suitcase.

Taking off his tan derby, he mopped at this shaven head with the stained handkerchief he kept in the back pocket of his suit pants.

A buzzing overhead caught his attention. He lifted his gaze from the dusty street to find he was standing directly beneath the telephone lines that stretched from one wooden pole to another.

A quarter mile back he had seen Ethel Rosenberg watching his progress from the shadows of her porch. By now Ethel had called each and every one of her friends who in turn were calling all of theirs.

He grinned, watching the weight of the racing gossip cause the phone lines to sag nearly low enough for him to reach up and touch.

Oh yes, the town knew of his coming.

Parenting Test

How well I remember those days.

As I watch our daughter deal with a seemingly never ending series of trips to doctors offices and hospitals in search of an answer to her daughter's illness, I remember the stresses of early parenthood.

I remember the endless hours of rocking and soothing, and the nights spent with one ear ever alert to plaintive cries.

I remember the gurgle and hiss of vaporizers fighting congestion and the rushing of water into tubs in combat with fevers.

I remember the weak whimpers carrying pleas for comfort and the piercing cries of outright pain.

Parenting will either give you the stamina of a Corinthian column or spin you around like a pebble in a raging river.

It is a lifelong test, parenting. A test shelled out in parcels, some easily accomplished and some requiring Herculean endurance. It's a must, this gradual building of success upon success, for if you were permitted a glimpse of the entire course from the outset you would surely find yourself beaten before you started.

The Way of Dreams

He recognized this place. It was the house he had grown up in. Though how he had come to be here now he had no idea.

But that was the way of dreams wasn't it? You found yourself in the middle of things as though you were an actor who had walked into the middle of a play.

Only there was no scene unfolding, no occupants to interact with. He stood alone in the middle of an empty living room, understanding the place was his now.

The walls were the color of coffee with too much cream. A color that did not match him memories. Which caused him to realize there were other things slightly amiss. Such as the sound coming from above. Footsteps lacking a cadence. Step,step,step.  Step.....step.  Step. Step,step.  Step....step.

It came to him it was the sound of someone searching. Searching perhaps for him.

The house no longer felt warm. His pulse boomed in his ears. He wanted to flee.

But as it often was in dreams his feet would not move. This was a dream wasn't it? He prayed it was.

Deer Prep

The sign on the side of the pickup read: Custom Deer Preparation

Causing we to wonder just what a deer would need to prepare for.

Is there a deer equivalent of our SAT tests?  Does a buck need to score at least a 945 before being allowed to wear antlers?

Perhaps deer need to be coached in techniques for evading hunters, or in avoiding cars operated by intoxicated drivers.

And then I saw the rest of the sign:  Bill's Butcher Shop.

Oh, I said.  OH!

Magnified View

The mist moved with purpose across the fields, but curled back on itself at the treeline surrounding the small cottage.

Years ago, as a child, he had shared stories with his friends about the old woman who lived in that cottage. It was said that at night she transformed herself into a a stunning beauty who seduced young men, lured them to her simple home, and boiled them alive in an immense cauldron. The bones were then scattered around her house to fuel the wards that kept her safe.

He set down his binoculars for a moment. He had dismissed those stories long ago. But now, seeing the mist turned back, he couldn't help but wonder...

Bright movement in the trees caught his attention. Perhaps it was the warbler he had been searching for. Bringing his binoculars back to his eyes he gave a surprised shriek. Filling the magnified circle was the very woman he had just been thinking of.

Fuel Slots

Gas prices have jumped 30 cents a gallon in two weeks. So when I saw the pumps at a local gas station were being replaced I figured the owner of the place was probably distressed to be missing out on the price run.

Then I thought that perhaps the business owner just might be installing the latest generation of gas pumps.

Put the nozzle of the gas hose in your car, pull the lever, and watch the numbers spin just like they do on a slot machine.  Get three cherries and your fill up is free, but get any combination of hard numbers and that's what you're paying for a gallon of gas.

How does $9.99 strike you?

Snow on the Wing

It was as though I had driven into a freshly shaken snow globe. The air was filled with swirling white. Not snow, but snow geese.

They descended by the hundreds, wings flapping and fanning as the geese came in for a landing. It seemed impossible their wings were not becoming entangled.

And then it was over. The sky was clear. But the fallow field was hidden beneath a fluttering blanket of white that stretched from one tree line to another.

I cracked the window of the car. The squawking... or whatever geese do... was deafening, shattering the impression of white peacefulness.

And then they were on the move, on the ground this time, forming up into individual colonies of white bordered by the brown of the sleeping land.

Prognosticating Sunshine

This is one year when I can actually believe that Punxsutawney Phil  actually saw his shadow without the influence of a score of lights set up by the new media for it really was a sunny morning.

And while tradition suggests that Phil's seeing of his shadow means we'll have to wait six more weeks before we can shove our heavy coats into the back of the closets, I prefer to focus on the belief that a clear, sunny morning on February 2nd portends many more sunny mornings.

There is of course the cold to be taken into consideration. The clear skies of February 2nd had allowed temperatures to drop into the low teens. Prognosticator Phil no doubt lost a significant portion of his bodyweight shivering in that cold. Perhaps I will have to suffer a few more mornings of frostbite temperatures- but as long as the sun rises into a gloriously blue sky to warm the rest of the day I believe I can muster the necessary energy to endure.

Here's to a sunny six weeks!